Saturday, January 23, 2016

WE ARE MOLECULES ON THE MOVE!

--Margy Stewart

I have often heard people say
that they don’t want to learn more about birds or wildflowers because they
“just want to enjoy nature.” They
say that counting wing bars or petals or learning species’ names will rob
Nature of her magic.

It’s as if they fear that
Nature is a humbug, like the Wizard of Oz: If they look too closely, the
illusion of grandeur will disappear. There
will be only a little man behind a curtain, with no magic powers.

But the more I learn about my
many-footed, winged, and rooted neighbors, the more mysterious my world
becomes. The more I know, the more I
wonder—not just about the natural world but about myself as a human being and
my place on earth.

Two incidents from this past
summer in particular come to mind:

It is mid-July. I watch a wheel bug stalk a cucumber beetle
on the blossom of a compass plant. I
marvel that the beetle doesn’t fly or crawl away. The
wheel bug gets closer and closer, then grabs its prey with its muscular front
legs. The beetle is already dead or in a death-like
state, for there is not a wave of antenna or twitch of leg. The
wheel bug begins to feed, his proboscis piercing the beetle’s thorax just
behind the head.

The back of my neck
tingles. The sun sets while the wheel bug pulls
nourishment into his own body from the beetle’s innards. The
meal goes on and on. Night
falls. I take a picture of the wheel bug and beetle
locked together. It is dark, so I have
to use the flash. The photo shows dots of light reflected in the
beetle’s eyes.

I can’t help but identify
with both prey and predator.

The beetle’s death is one of
trillions taking place on this patch of prairie in this stretch of time. Death is one of the elements here, like
earth or air. There is nothing more
common. Nothing to see here! But when I contemplate my own mortality, my death seems remarkable,
extraordinary, in fact, impossible!

How can I wrap my mind around
the end of my mind?

Predation is a mind-bender,
too. No matter how kind we try to be,
we humans have to kill to live. We are
herbivores, carnivores, omnivores. I
can feel gratitude for my meals, but I can’t feel guiltless toward the plants
and animals whose lives I’ve shortened or distorted so that my life could be
longer or more full.

But watching the wheel bug
feed on the beetle my perspective changes. It’s as if everything is in motion. I no longer think of links in the food chain
as separate entities. Plant,
plant-feeder, meat-eater appear as swirls in flowing currents of energy. I imagine
channels all lit up and buzzing, shimmering with change.

Is individuality even
real?

Wheel bug does not exist
without Beetle, nor Beetle without Flower. We humans do not exist without oxygen or water
or food-plants or food-animals.

We are relationships more
than we are separate individuals.

But just because
individuality is not self-standing, it doesn’t mean that individuality is
non-existent.

We are all biological
individuals, like bumps on a road, no two alike.

The bumps do exist. But so does the road.

We are particle and wave.

That dynamism, that
shape-changing at the heart of Life—I like to think about it. It helps to reconcile me to my mortality and
my omnivory.

I too am molecules on the
move!

The second incident: It is the end of August. My husband shows me that swamp milkweed is
blooming in one of our wetlands! I am
thrilled, as this is a first for this species on our property. Swamp milkweed is a beautiful native plant
with gorgeous deep-pink flowers and a great source of nectar for late-season butterflies.

While watching the monarchs
flutter from plant to plant, I notice how many other insects make use of this
milkweed, too. One of them is a large
iridescent beetle whose front end I never see because its head is always buried
in a blossom, slurping up pollen.

It is clearly a flower beetle,
but of what species?

Euphoria sepulcralis on Asclepias incarnata

With help from my naturalist
friends and confirmation from bugguide.net, I learn that my beetle is Dark
Flower Beetle, aka Euphoria sepulcralis.It
is one of the scarab beetles, which puts it instantly in the realm of lore and
myth. Poe’s “Gold Bug” was a scarab, the
sign of a lost treasure, but also a death’s- head, the mark of death. In addition, the sacred beetle of the
ancient Egyptians was a scarab, in fact, a dung-beetle.

Remarkable: The beetle eats dung and yet incarnates the
divine!

But it should not surprise us
too much. Vultures eat carrion and they
are sacred in many cultures.

Similarly, the very names of my
beetle fuse opposites together: “Dark” with “Flower,” “Euphoria
(wild joy)” with “sepulcralis” (of
the sepulchre or tomb).

The bloom of darkness, the
wild joy of death--these are paradoxes. And just as it did for the ancient Egyptians,
paradox characterizes the mystical, logic-transcending visions of all
religions—dead but alive, poor but rich, buried but risen, last but first—opposites
that can’t both be true but that in a higher reality are both true.

Paradox is mystery.

Thus have human cultures in
all places and all times reached for what is beyond comprehension.

Therefore, as I get to know
my humble beetle, I am reminded that knowledge always points beyond itself—and that
euphoria is somehow involved.

That’s what encounters with
the natural world are for me: Knowledge
growing, mystery deepening—my own wild joy!

Sunday, January 17, 2016

That green haze on the ground around this clump of switch grass is the new growth of hedge parsley, a non-native annual that used to cover the entire field. But now it's giving way to native perennials such as this switch grass, which we did not plant but which volunteered.

Also scoring for the perennial side is Foxglove Beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis), which was in our seedmix. It bloomed last year in the south-central part of the field. But here it is, with its beautiful basal leaves, in the northwest part of the field!

Switch Grass surrounded by Hedge Parlsey

These basal leaves of Penstemon digitalis
stand out colorfully against the dead, straw-colored
stalks from last year's fox tails.

These basal leaves of Penstemon digitalis
are not always so vari-colored. Sometimes
they are completely green.

Friday, January 15, 2016

Note how both male and female coyotes lift a hind leg when marking--but the male sticks his leg out behind him, while the female keeps hers crooked and slanting slightly forward.

This handy tip for telling the sexes apart comes from Hope Ryden in her marvelous book, God's Dog. When she first began studying coyotes, she assumed, as most of us do, that like dogs they would indicate their maleness or femaleness by lifting a leg or squatting. She thought she was seeing an extraordinary number of same sex couples! But then she noticed the tell-tale difference and passed this helpful thing-to-look-for on to her readers.

Red-Gray has been around for awhile. He could well be the son of Big Gray and Miss Red, whose courtship we witnessed 3 years ago, at just about this time of year. Their flirtation is shown in the preceding video from 2012, "Big Gray and Miss Red: A Duo."

If Red-Gray is setting up housekeeping, we congratulate him and his young bride! May they have a long and happy life together!